This training course provides an overview of the essential tools and the skills to build world-class standards into your planning, budgeting, performance measurement & reporting system, looking at new and best practice techniques, explain how they complement the traditional financial planning tools, and introducing new concepts for measuring and reporting performance to enhance shareholder wealth creation or provide value for money for Stakeholders.

Course Objectives

• How to implement advanced planning and control techniques into your budgeting process • Know how to integrate the budgeting process with the development of the company’s long-term strategic vision • Know how to provide a decision support structure that provides timely and useful information to decision makers • Successfully build an integrated planning, budgeting and reporting process • Know how to forecast costs and revenues with greater confidence • Apply management tools to the budgeting process that contribute to strategic goals • Effectively manage the budgeting process • Identify key performance indicators for effective and focused decision making • Develop ways to increase profitability and performance through streamlined planning and reporting

Who Should Attend?

• All professionals responsible for budget preparation and management reporting • All process owners who require a more in-depth understanding of integrated planning and budgeting techniques, • Personnel wanting to understand more about Financial planning and cost analysis • Anyone with direct planning and budgeting responsibility, as well as managers, budget holders, advisors, accountants and business consultants

Course content

Day One: Budgets in Today’s International environment

Planning In the Organization

• Organizational Planning and Control Framework • The Product / Information / Decision Support Cycle • Strategic, Tactical, and Operational Forecasts • The recognition of risk in Models • Using Budget Models for Simulation Purposes • The Drive toward Shareholder Value (EVA®) The Strategic Plan • The purpose of planning and budgeting in business • Defining the strategic approach to business planning • Defining strategic assumptions • Building the strategic planning model using financial data • Various strategic and tactical approaches to business planning • Defining the Decision-Support model: Assumptions/Goals and Key Success Factors

Day Two: Analysing the Historical Data Using Excel®

• Recognizing the Basic Patterns Inherent in Historical Data • Using the Exploratory Data Analysis Tools Available in Excel® • Development of Time Series Models using histograms, moving averages, exponential smoothing, and regression analysis • Using Regression Analysis as a predictor and estimator • Mastering the use of Exponential Smoothing as a Data Analysis tool • Single Regression vs. Multiple Regression • Validation of Time Series Analysis